Hi and welcome to my blog! My name is James Reynolds and i’m an atheist but it’s just one of the many things that represents me. I’m also British, a video gamer, an undergraduate, a blogger and an avid techie.

I’ve been on the internet for some years surfing relatively passively and only establishing myself in a few places almost exclusively video game haunts but in recent months it’s the tech blogs I’ve latched onto. I’m a regular reader of Wired and the BBC technology channel to note the two best known in the UK and I’m shocked at the interaction between Atheists and Theists.

I will not claim to be any better as in the past I have been involved in many a fervent debate concerning religion, God and evolution but I did so out of my love for Science. To me Science is the purest creation of Man and to hear it under fire from the undereducated shakes my world view to the core. That being said in many cases the most adamantly religious are also those who are the best educated (albeit not necessarily in an appropriate field) because to maintain their faith they must deny what most believe to be true.

I’m going to mention evolution as it is something that illustrates my point perfectly. I live with several theists of varying denominations to whom the very thought of Evolution is repulsive and any evidence provided is either ficticious or simply not enough. In my mind these people are not only in denial but hypocrites of the highest order.

They refuse to accept the possibility that life was not always as it is now and yet they use personal computers, call people on their mobile phones, drink clean and safe water and enjoy the rest of the perks that came at the price of scientific research. They are hypocrites because most if not all of these discoveries (/inventions) owe themselves to the scientific method.

Another puzzling thing with evolution is the sheer level of forced ignorance you see circulating supposed first world education systems. Evolution has had more prime-time scientific effort dedicated to it than virtually any other Theory with regards to proving it and yet the still tell us it isn’t true or it isn’t enough. To quote a Jewish Wired.com commenter:

[K]eep in mind we have concrete evidence on how old the earth is, it’s previous occupants, when those occupants lived, even how the solar system, galaxy and our universe formed.

He goes on to say:

1) How many days passed during the days of creation, and no the answer is not seven. Why? It is generally accepted that a day for us on this planet last 24 hours, and no where does it say how long a day was. In fact, in the early part of the story there was no separation.

2) Show us where it describes the creatures; go on, I mean I know fish are described and to some extend fauna and insects.

3) Now, it says in there that we are created in the image of G-d. Who are we mere mortals to assume what G-d looks like? Honestly, it crosses the line to assume that we have always look like this just because we are created in the image of the All Mighty. Moreover, can that statement mean instead that it is our soul, the soul of every living creature on this Earth, that is created in the image of G-d.

4) Last of all, if we are meant to take the word of G-d, be it from the Bible, the Torah, the Qur’an, etc… We would not have been created with the ability to think for ourselves and question the word of G-d. We would most likely not have the ability to think for ourselves and question the word of G-d, and instead maybe the dolphins or roaches would be more worthy of the gift of logic. Thus, I believe, no matter what the issue, it is a sin to accept the word of G-d without second thought on the subject.

I agree with this stance wholeheartedly because there is room in an educated person’s life for God but you can not reject what we know to be true. If a chapter of the Qu’ran or the Bible told us unequivocally that the Earth was flat and the center of the Universe would the majority of the Christians believe that?

I hear a resounding chorus of no but how many of you [Theists] believe the world is young? Or that a global flood did happen? Or that Jesus turned water into wine? The new testament is just a collection of stories written by mortals documenting the happenings of a man 2,000 years ago and should be scrutinized like any other historical accounts. The old testament is a fanciful depiction of how the Jews (et al) believed the world came to be and is still whether you like it or not a product of man.

I won’t debate the authenticity of your books right now but it is important to realise that the world we lived in when they were written is not the world we live in now. I discussed with a pseudo-theist recently the world flood with which I took my “It never happened” stance but he adequetly put forward the idea that although it is true that a global flood never happened as per the old testament what’s to say there was never a flood in what seemed like the world at the time?

It took us hundreds of years to convince people the Earth wasn’t flat and the universe wasn’t heliocentric – Is it so far fetched that at the time of writing (presuming the book is as old as we’re told it is) they believed a small local flood was as grand as this? Had they been a tribe of people who never left the area of New Orleans would they have perhaps considered that a world ending flood?

I’d like to close by saying that you should never take anything at face value be it science or religion. It’s important that you see for yourself and expand the boundaries of not only what you know and see but also how you see it.